How hard is the water in Freestone County, TX?
6.6 grains per gallon
Optional: a softener helps, but plenty of homes skip it.
The median hardness measured in Freestone County, TX is 112 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 6.6 gpg. That is moderately hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 8 samples at 8 sites between 1990 and 2019, drawn from groundwater wells, which is what most taps and private wells in the county draw on.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 2.2 and 10 gpg. That spread crosses a decision line, so some homes here land on a different answer. A $10 test strip on your own tap settles it. Confidence in the county figure: medium (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 6.6 gpg this is your call. Look for white film on glasses and crust on the shower head: if you see little of either, you can live without one. If you do want one, a 24,000-grain unit is enough, so ask for that size rather than a bigger one. Because Freestone County straddles a decision line, check your own tap with a $10 test strip before you spend anything.
More on when a softener is not worth it.
From 0.6 to 19.5 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Freestone County was 11.1 mg/L and the hardest 333 mg/L, a 30-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 10 gpg and the bottom quarter below 2.2 gpg.
Wells 6.6 gpg, rivers and lakes 7 gpg
8 groundwater samples from 8 wells put the median at 112.3 mg/L. 159 surface samples from 3 sites put it at 120 mg/L. In Freestone County the rivers and lakes come out 0.4 gpg harder. Here the surface water reads harder than the wells, which often points to streams fed by limestone springs or irrigation return flow. The two sources are close, so the county figure should hold whichever one your tap is on.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 143 lb of salt a year (4 bags of 40 lb, about $26), and roughly 2,346 gallons of regeneration water. Installed, most units run $1,000 to $4,500; spread over 15 years with salt, that is about $126 a year.
Sizing at 6.6 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 396 | 24,000 | 48 lb |
| 2 | 792 | 24,000 | 96 lb |
| 4 | 1,584 | 24,000 | 193 lb |
| 6 | 2,376 | 24,000 | 289 lb |
Freestone County against the rest of Texas
Among the 217 Texas counties with data, Freestone County is number 166 of 217 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 37% of counties.
Softest in Texas: Nacogdoches County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Ward County at 218.5 gpg. Closest to Freestone County: Polk County (6.5), Houston County (6.6), Rockwall County (6.3).